Carboniferous Period: Quick Facts

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Carboniferous paleogeography

A detailed geologic time scale chart displaying Earth's history from the Hadean Eon over 4.5 billion years ago to the present, organized by eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages with color-coded columns and corresponding dates in millions of years.

Distribution of landmasses, mountainous regions, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins during the Late Carboniferous. Included in the paleogeographic reconstruction are cold and warm ocean currents. The present-day coastlines and tectonic boundaries of the configured continents are shown in the inset.

Paleogeographic map depicting the arrangement of continents during the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian periods, with a large shaded area showing the extent of the Permo-Carboniferous ice sheet around the ancient South Pole. Arrows indicate the direction of ice sheet movement, and dashed lines outline the ice sheet boundary. The map illustrates continental drift and plate tectonics concepts.

Fossilized remains of Cryptoblastus, an extinct genus of blastoids collected from the Burlington Limestone, Iowa.

Dielasma, a genus of extinct brachiopods (lamp shells) occurring as fossils in Carboniferous and Permian rocks.

Pennsylvanian coal forest

A chart detailing the Carboniferous period within the Paleozoic era, showing its division into Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subperiods, with corresponding epochs, ages, and their ranges in millions of years ago.

Illustration of the extinct Edaphosaurus, a pelycosaur, showing a reptile-like animal with a large, sail-like fin on its back, squat limbs, and a long tail. A scale bar indicates size.

A timeline chart shows major events in plant evolution alongside the geologic time scale, with illustrations of algae, mosses, ferns, ginkgoes, conifers, cycads, and flowering plants marking their first appearances from the Ordovician to the Cenozoic era. Key milestones such as the emergence of early vascular plants and seed plants are labeled with approximate millions of years ago.

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Topics

Early Carboniferous Epoch Karoo System Mississippian Subperiod Pennsylvanian Subperiod Viséan Stage Tournaisian Stage Serpukhovian Stage Gzhelian Stage Bashkirian Stage Coal Measures Silurian Period Devonian Period Cambrian Period Ordovician Period Permian Period

Key People

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Jean-Baptiste-Julien d’ Omalius d’Halloy

Belgian geologist

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Sir Richard John Griffith, 1st Baronet

Irish geologist and civil engineer

Conybeare, William Daniel

William Daniel Conybeare

British geologist